FLOB - Naiset (2 - 7)

At this stage of the season, where we were in the position of needing to win all of our games to have a chance of making the play-offs, a game against a team who has not had such a good season becomes not so easy.  This was a game that I'm sure we were expected to win, but sometimes they can be the hardest games.

This season there are only 4 teams in our group who have beaten us & one of them was FLOB. It was during the first round of Suomen Cup & there is no doubt that since that time our seasons have been very different, but still...they had beaten us, so were determined to make sure it didn't happen again.

We have had games this season where we have scored a lot of goals, but at the same time had many scored against us & one objective for this game was to really concentrate on our defence & make sure that we limited their scoring opportunities, while making sure that we still didn't forget about scoring goals ourselves. 

7-2 was a good result for us. It gave us 2 points & that was ultimately what we wanted from this game. This certainly wasn't our best game of the season but, once again, the players did the things that I asked & did them well. Not great, but good enough, & this week that was all that we needed. 

The number of defensive players that we had available for this game was affected by injury (Annina Mero), sickness (Maiju Kinnunen) & life as a singing star (Mirkka Laaka), but Ulla Karjala did a good job playing as a defender & Minna Rautio had a strong game in the goals.

The FLOB goalkeeper made a lot of saves in this game & their defence did a good job of clearing the rebounds, which is something that we will have to work on. Laura Kullaa & Riitta Lankinen combined for two goals, & Tuija Salminen scored from a beautiful pass from Heli Haapasalmi. Several of our goals came from good movement of the ball out of our own defensive area or from putting the FLOB defenders under pressure, so I was very happy with that part of our game.

With just one game to go it is still not clear in either the Länsilohka or our own Itälohko as to which teams will finish 1st or 2nd, so it will be an interesting finish to the season. However, there is only one thing that we can control, & that is how we play & the result of our final game, so this week that will be our focus.

Sarah Mitchell

Päävalmentaja

Käy tsekkaamassa: http://www.naissalibandy.net/blogi/2007/02/17/797